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KMb Innovation in Aging and Technology Research: Preliminary Results from an Action-Oriented Study

Published: Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Understanding and Enacting Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) in Large Teams and Across AGE-WELL NCE project releases new research poster

This poster introduces preliminary findings from qualitative interviews conducted as part of a larger action-oriented research project “Understanding and Enacting Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) in Large Teams and Across AGE-WELL NCE (Canada’s Technology & Aging research Network of Centres of Excellence)”. The purpose of this project is to gain insight into how transdisciplinary researchers understand KMb and its objectives, how they envision KMb within their disciplines and projects, and the actions and supports they deem necessary to successfully engage in impactful socially responsible research and development (R&D). Our intent is thus to understand and develop a vibrant culture of knowledge mobilization within this complex and rapidly growing transdisciplinary Network.

AGE-WELL actively invests in expanding its KMb knowledge base as a crucial step in fulfilling its research and social mission. Critical research on KMb represents one such investment since it builds on a plurality of approaches to knowledge mobilization, which we seek to document and advance by providing an opportunity to researchers and stakeholders to reflect on the process of knowledge production in an interview setting. With this in mind, our objective is to design a knowledge mobilization infrastructure, where every node of the network and the network as a whole, are effective and innovative in directing the flow of knowledge for social, economic, and intellectual impact, and continuously seek to bridge the gap between new technological discoveries and real-world solutions for older adults, their families, and aging societies.

The poster will share results from the interviews in an attempt to understand the culture and processes of knowledge mobilization in a large Canadian transdisciplinary research team. Themes will include the plurality of understandings and approaches to KMb, disciplinary differences, the challenges with regards to established structures and systems of knowledge production, intranetwork collaboration, engagement of knowledge users, and approaches to the efficacy of methods and outcomes.

In sharing the preliminary results from the analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with a broad spectrum of knowledge users affiliated with AGE-WELL, this poster presentation makes a contribution to understanding the complexities of socially-engaged R&D in the field of aging and technology, and proposes a number of governance principles that are critical to a responsive/learning network design.